Fandom and Religion: Alienation of Opinion Leaders in the Fandom and Additions to Secondary Communication Theory

Abstract

Taking the TFBOYS 10th anniversary event as a trigger, with the irrational polarizing behavior represented by the light board battle and the flag-raising parade, the fan community once again reached the climax of public opinion. Disregarding the idol's rightful owner, the fan community, led by opinion leaders, self-righteously and continuously impacted the social order, and the fandom formed an ideological system similar to that of a religion, and the mechanism of the traditional secondary communication theory in the fandom seemed to be alienated due to the usurpation of the discourse power by the opinion leaders. The purpose of this study is to further explore the similarity between the ideology and religious system of the current fandom in China, and to supplement the secondary communication theory and establish a new model based on the alienation phenomenon of opinion leaders overstepping the power of the main lord in the circle mechanism of the rice circle. Based on the questionnaire survey of fan groups, it can be verified that the ideology of the fandom is similar to the religious system and the opinion leaders do overstep the power of the main lord, but the main lord is not hollowed out. Based on this, supplemented with in-depth interviews, it can be further verified under what conditions the idol becomes a spiritual symbol or even loses the power of the subjective discourse.